and in Rome under the emperors:  then some vague observations on the Middle Ages, with a quotation that was evidently intended to be Latin; lastly, comes an account of the poor-laws of modern times, in which I meet with “the Anglo-Saxon domination,” King Egbert, King Ethelred, “a remarkable book of Icelandic laws, called Hragas”; Sweden and Norway, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and nearly all the minor German States.  The most wonderful thing is that all this mass of historical information, extending from the Talmud to the most recent legislation of Hesse-Darmstadt, is compressed into twenty-one octavo pages!  The doctrinal part of the memorandum is not less rich.  Many respected names from the literature of Germany, France, and England are forcibly dragged in; and the general conclusion drawn from this mass of raw, undigested materials is believed to be “the latest results of science.”

Does the reader suspect that I have here chosen an extremely exceptional case?  If so, let us take the next paper in the file.  It refers to a project of law regarding imprisonment for debt.  On the first page I find references to “the Salic laws of the fifth century,” and the “Assises de Jerusalem, A.D 1099.”  That, I think, will suffice.  Let us pass, then, to the next step.

When the quintessence of human wisdom and experience has thus been extracted, the commission considers how the valuable product may be applied to Russia, so as to harmonise with the existing general conditions and local peculiarities.  For a man of practical mind this is, of course, the most interesting and most important part of the operation, but from Russian legislators it receives comparatively little attention.  Very often have I turned to this section of official papers in order to obtain information regarding the actual state of the country, and in every case I have been grievously disappointed.  Vague general phrases, founded on a priori reasoning rather than on observation, together with a few statistical tables—­which the cautious investigator should avoid as he would an ambuscade—­are too often all that is to be found.  Through the thin veil of pseudo-erudition the real facts are clear enough.  These philosophical legislators, who have spent their lives in the official atmosphere of St. Petersburg, know as much about Russia as the genuine cockney knows about Great Britain, and in this part of their work they derive no assistance from the learned German treatises which supply an unlimited amount of historical facts and philosophical speculation.

From the commission the project passes to the Council of State, where it is certainly examined and criticised, and perhaps modified, but it is not likely to be improved from the practical point of view, because the members of the Council are merely ci-devant members of similar commissions, hardened by a few additional years of official routine.  The Council is, in fact, an assembly of tchinovniks who know little of the practical, everyday wants of the unofficial classes.  No merchant, manufacturer, or farmer ever enters its sacred precincts, so that its bureaucratic serenity is rarely disturbed by practical objections.  It is not surprising, therefore, that it has been known to pass laws which were found at once to be absolutely unworkable.